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The Blessedly Bored

How lucky are we? We are blessed with boredom.

And it’s about time we see it for what it is.

Boredom has long had a stigma attached to it – you know the saying about idle hands and the devil’s workshop – but I believe that taking away the negative connotation will do us some good. I think the last thing we need is to berate ourselves for having the feeling; there’s no sense in compounding the negativity. A lot of us try to get distracted enough to avoid feeling bored (which, I think, is where we get into trouble), but if we could embrace boredom more often I believe that awareness, acceptance, and ownership of it could lead to amazing changes in our lives – the kind of changes we’re always saying we want but then wondering why they never seem to happen.

It’s hardly just stillness that can lead to boredom; it’s also repetition. You could be involved in a task requiring a lot of skill and attention, but if it becomes just another thing you do…it can be boring. Being busy and bored aren’t mutually exclusive and we do a massive disservice to ourselves when think they are.

Boredom is the buzzer that goes off in our lives when it’s time for things to change. Boredom tells us when we may be ready for a new idea, a new approach, or in more extreme cases a new passion or hobby, a new relationship, a new job, a new location.

But here’s the catch: boredom isn’t free license to bail on responsibilities, situations, or people. It’s the invitation to make them better. Sometimes it signals when to move on, but I believe that most of the time it’s the voice inside of us urging us to get creative with what we already have. It can be the warning light that we’re disconnecting in some way from someone or something we love, which may or may not be good for us.

And boredom is a highly effective antidote to fear. Think about it…have you ever been bored and afraid at the same time? If so, when fear is stronger change can seem overwhelming; it’s easy to feel frozen, lash out, or run away – basic fight or flight – yet not ever escape the same situations or patterns. But when boredom is stronger, that’s when things are about to get interesting. Reactions are more thought out and, for better or worse depending on your motives, have more potential to stir the pot and create change.

Sometimes when we’re bored we feel all out of ideas, and when we feel stuck or blocked, simply knowing that we’re bored doesn’t seem like enough to solve anything. So we’ll often add “bored” to our list of things that are wrong, that list that includes whatever other adjectives we use to define the malaise and discontent we occasionally feel in life. Instead, if we practice flexing our intuition in times when we think or feel that we’re bored, the possibilities of where that could lead us are literally infinite. And yes, I mean that literally.

There is a theory about energy that uses the term “attractor fields” to describe how we become locked into patterns in life. The book Power vs.Force by David R. Hawkins (M.D., Ph.D.) goes into detail about it. I highly recommend the read!

Basically, attractor fields describe how we function energetically on subtle levels. We are pulled into fields around us that represent the same fields within us. Sound familiar? It’s very similar to the law of attraction. Hawkins goes on to describe our innate ability to transcend levels of subtle energy through awareness, conscious choosing, and release of what we “know”.

M-fields can determine what is possible, because what we believe we can do is what we do. Hawkins uses the example of running a mile in under four minutes: until Sir Roger Bannister broke the perceived barrier of if not being possible, no one had been recorded doing it. Yet after Bannister shattered the illusion, more and more people began achieving the same feat. He changed the M-field – or the energetic acceptance of what was thought to be possible – and that changed the reality for others, too.

So the next time you’re bored, what if instead of reaching for distraction (in whatever form you choose) you take an internal pause to simply notice what is happening. Ask a few questions:

What is the activity – or lack of – with which you’re bored?

Why doesn’t it seem fulfilling?

Is your boredom linked to what you’re doing (or not doing), or to an energy of unrest within you that has deeper meaning?

Are you using boredom as an excuse to emotionally check out of something that has overwhelmed you, is difficult (though necessary) to face, or that no longer feels right?

What do you want to create in your life tangibly – write a book, a healthier body, a delicious meal, a thriving business?

What do you want to create in your life intangibly – freedom, loving relationships, peace, joy?

Not every moment in life has to consciously be about lifelong goals. Most moments in life are rightfully and simply about right here, right now, and finding contentment in any given space and time. Boredom is a message to us that there’s more to this space and this time we’re in if we allow ourselves the awareness to explore it and listen to our intuition. There is no shortage of things to explore in this world, and all of these moments eventually do add up to a lifetime. We’re infinitely choosing and forming our lives.

When we get really good at this we take back the power in our moments, and then nothing in life will be boring for longer than it took for us hear the message and realize what we could be doing instead. Count your blessings of boredom, and then make your boredom count. Become a conscious chooser of your attractor fields and former or your own M-fields, and then enjoy what you and the universe create together.